


Orange Sky

by Statementends (Blueberryshortcake)



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Challenge Response, Gen, Introspection, breakdown - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-16
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2020-01-14 23:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18486523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blueberryshortcake/pseuds/Statementends
Summary: After spending three days in Too Close I Cannot Breathe Jon needs to see the sky.





	Orange Sky

**Author's Note:**

> For @magnuscc on Tumblr. This month’s theme is Colours and my prompt was Orange. 
> 
> Warnings: Canon typical. No graphic content but all the major entities are mentioned.

The dirt clung to him and every muscle in his body ached, but Jon slowly climbed the stairs of the institute up and up and up.

After some furious and confused words he had left. Basira was looking after Daisy, they had a lot to talk about. They had a lot of…

He let the thought fall away too tired to finish it. He reached the roof access and stepped through to the orange dawn. The sky over London seemed to go on forever. A fiery glow that covered the city. He felt wet tears trail down his face, leaving muddy lines. He staggered, feeling the fresh cold spring air on his face. Open sky. He wept.

It could snatch him up and he didn’t think he’d care.

Jon let himself breath in and out over and over again. He had felt the crushing fear of the buried before, in the statements, in the dreams, but that had been…

He rubbed his eyes tiredly.

The last three days, the last few weeks, the last few years all hit him at once. He was afraid. He was so afraid.

Because that was going to be his end, wasn’t it? Maybe not the Buried, but something just as horrible and everlasting. Terminal velocity, or endless burning pain. Spider webs tugging him in all directions, his skin peeled off, being stabbed in blind rage, or hunted with cool intent. Going mad through endless corridors, or his bones pulled from his body, or worms under his skin building a nest. He had already tasted each of them.

And he would be alone, and in darkness, and watched throughout it all.

Jon looked up angrily at the blazing sky. A ring of clouds made a corona of light. Eye-like, burning burnt golden orange. He wanted to laugh, but it came out more as a sob. How ironic, the power that everyone feared most death was the kindest, and that Jon Knew he would never get to face it.

And if by some luck the others didn’t get him, then it probably meant he would be doing it to others. That he would grow into the monster Elias wanted him to become.

He let himself sink to the ground, folding his legs against his chest. His tears stopped. He didn’t have the luxury for it. Daisy had been through hell, had spent months in there. Basira had been holding the archives together. Melanie had been almost consumed by rage and slaughter, and Martin…

And none of them trusted him. They didn’t even like him, which was a stupid thought. He never cared about being liked, and it was the least of his problems now… but maybe he was tired of being resented. Tired of being at fault for powers so far out of his control… even if he did blame himself all the same. He has powers, he should at least be able to protect someone with them.

Tell that to Tim. He thought bitterly. To Helen. To Leitner. To Sasha.

He still couldn’t remember her face. Couldn’t remember what she was really like. He had memorized the tapes, hearing a young woman he didn’t recognise happily banter with him over the pronunciation of Calliope. And no one could morn her properly. Anyone that knew her remembered the creature that took her place. They wouldn’t remember the real Sasha.

He… wanted to ask Melanie… but Melanie wasn’t… no.

No point in asking.

He sighed. The clouds had broken apart. The orange sky was fading off into blue, and along with it any energy he had left. He was tired. Bone achingly tired. He felt no triumph at all. It was the very least he could do for Daisy…and for Basira. And–

Well the very worst thing was… he had wanted to save her of course. He went there for her, but another part of him…

The stupid monster part of him had wanted to know. To see first hand what was down there. To open the box labeled ‘do not open’ and see what kind of torture awaited. To feel the dirt crushing against him. The darkness surrounding him. Revel in the claustrophobia setting in as he breathed in mud. The fear of knowing he would never escape.  He had wanted that… and … in doing that… for a moment he had felt…whole.

It would be worse now. The sea swirling at the back of his mind held back by a flimsy door strained to keep it all back.

He wondered if it would be easier… without them. He wasn’t like Gertrude. He could never feed someone to the Spiral in the name of the greater good without hesitation or guilt. Bind a man to a book that had haunted him throughout his childhood.

Tim had died… but that… it was different. He felt it was different. Maybe because he felt about it at all. She wouldn’t have, he was sure of it.

But, if there was no Martin, Sasha, Tim, or any of the others, he wondered if maybe he wouldn’t mind becoming the monster.

The monster felt easy. He was so terrified. But he still wanted to know. He had always wanted to know. Even before the archives. He could never just… walk away. Even now, trying to imagine life if he could free the others and himself from the Archives…

Even now he just imagined himself there. Tether cut, but still among the files and tapes. Listening. Hearing the statements. Learning.

Elias would be so pleased…

But Elias was wrong. His …friends… his colleagues weren’t tools to examine, use, and ultimately discard. They might not trust him, or like him, but it didn’t matter. They kept him wanting to be human. And that was enough. It had to be.

_“What happened, Martin?”_

_“You **died**.”_

_“I came back.”_

_“Yeah… and I’m not going to let it happen again.”_

Right.

He pulled himself up still sore and muddy and cold. He would shower and dress and do his best to protect them, because they were the last bit of Jonathan Sims that he could hold on to.


End file.
